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Tuesday, 31 May 2016

Come and happy dance
with me! I have finished stitching the House of Margaret Mystery SAL piece. I
put the last stitch on this piece last night and I’m elated that my goal to ‘Stitch
every day in May’ brought me this success.

I’m happy with the way
the design turned out. It was my first time participating in a mystery SAL and
I was skeptical what theme this pattern would follow. Glad that it’s a neutral
theme and I even have somebody in mind who I can gift this to.

Details:

Started on :
8-Apr-2016

Finished on:
30-May-2016

Actual number
of stitch days: 25

Stitched on:16 count white Aida

Floss used
:Anchor, DMC

Designer: Viktoria Horvath

Pattern source:
House of Margaret

Number of
colors: 7

Stitch count:
167H*164W

Type of
stitches: Full cross stitch, fractionals,back stitch

Progress Pics

The pattern was easy to
follow and the designer Viktoria did a good job considering she is quite new at
designing. As there were very few colors in the design, not much counting was
required. It’s my first pattern where I worked from a digital copy and saved a
few trees…lol.

However I think the
designer could have done better with instructions. You see, the designer didn’t
specify the fractional stitches in the pattern key, the count size was given as
164*167, not clear which one of this is width/height. The top of the pattern
started from row 9 and/ or 20 which resulted my piece to be a bit off centered.
The lettering and color selection for back stitch could have been better. I’m
writing this as a review/feedback for the designer and this is no way a
criticism.

I’m thinking of getting
the piece framed with a black matt .What do you think?

Now on to future
crafting plans- Continuing on with the goal of stitching every day I will be joining
stitchers on Instagram for #TheStitchingHourSummer2016. It will be easier for
me achieve this in the month of June as we will have reduced working hours in
the month.

I’m working on
organizing World Wide Knit in Public day in Kuwait on 18th June. Last
year, Kuwait participated first time in this event and I met wonderful people
whom I now call my friends. This time organizing it in day time is a bit difficult as
Ramadan starts on 6th June and all the cafes etc. are closed during
this month of fasting. Wish me luck ….

I know people in the UK
and USA are enjoying the sunshine and venturing out. However, summer here means
sitting at home as temperature reach 50+°C (122+°F) and expatriates leave the
country to visit their friends and family in home countries. Things are slow
and there are hardly any activities. Not that I’m complaining about sitting at
home, I love being a hermit. I will miss my craft meet ups and the fun we have
as a group. Saturday will be our last meet up before the vacation starts.

So keep those beautiful
pictures of gardens and outdoors coming and I will enjoy them while stitching
sitting on my sofa.

Sunday, 22 May 2016

I had a great weekend –
we went grocery shopping, had family over for dinner and I cooked so many new recipes.
I know its Hermit weekend and I was supposed to stitch as much as I can. However,
I love cooking and hosting guests so doesn’t feel bad if cooking cuts my
stitching time once in a while ..lol

I stitched my House of
Margaret Mystery SAL piece during IHSW. We are on week 7 and the last part will
be released next Friday. In my introduction post to this project, I wrongly
mentioned that the SAL will last 17 weeks.

Here is a before pic

Here is an after pic.

As you can see, the SAL
is not a mystery anymore..haha. We see Alex, Marty, Melman (from the movie
Madagascar) in the picture above. However I’m still guessing who the grey
animal is, at first I thought it’s an elephant, because of the big ears in the
pattern. DH says it’s a donkey. I don’t remember a popular elephant or a donkey
from the movie. So, it looks like it’s going to be Gloria with long ears.

I’m hoping to finish
this project next Friday when the last part is released. A happy dance is long
overdue.

I will leave you with a
picture of Black bean quesadillas I made for lunch yesterday. They turned out
delicious. If you are interested the recipe, it is from http://thekitchensinkblog.com/.

Instead of using canned
beans and store bought chipotle sauce, I cooked the beans myself and made chipotle
sauce with Indian chilly.

Sunday, 15 May 2016

The title of my post is what my target for the month is. You see I was quite surprised to see that I haven't been stitching much this year, when I made the Pies for my last post.
I know some of you stitch everyday and that's inspirational. I sat thinking why can't I do that: I have a normal 10 hr job (no overtime), don't have to cook for a big family or neither do I have pets who need much care (I have budgies ,but they hardly take any time). So I realized I'm being a lazy bum ...
I have set up a target to stitch every day this month even if it's a single length of thread. It's been a success so far, Thursday being an exception.

Enough of my rant about my time organization .So here is my check-in for Jo's Gifted Gorgeousness SAL, IHSW hosted by Joysze and Friday Frolicking.
I have been working on EMS Flower of the month series which will be a gift for my aunt. I have completed July and August Flowers . Except the back stitching and some stitches with white. I prefer to stitch white at the end to keep the stitches clean.

Yesterday morning was my craft meetup and it was so good to see my friends after 2 months. We had a wonderful time discussing crafts, current affairs and stash addictions.
I got wonderful gifts from Tammy, which she bought all the way from Jerusalem.

I tried my hands at sewing again to make a laptop sleeve. It's not pretty or neat however it sure is very useful with the season of dust soon approaching.

That's it my friends for today. I will be stitching the EMS piece today and then pick my HOM Mystery SAL piece tomorrow for rotation.

About Me

I'm an Indian expat working in Kuwait since 2014. This bIog is a journal of my hobbies and interesting aspects of my life. Please leave comments if you visit my blog. I would love to know what you feel about it.